2016 Meursault Les Genevrières 1er Cru

Henri Boillot advises drinking the 2016 white Burgundies after the '15s but before the '14s and '17s. He began harvesting on September 21 and noted that grape sugars were a bit higher than they were in 2017. The '16s I tasted (the crus were bottled last December) were also sappy and light on their feet.

Henri Boillot, who as usual harvested his Chardonnay early in 2016, beginning on September 21, described the year as “a classic vintage with medium-plus aging potential,” by which he means up to 15 years of drinkability. He brought in his fruit with 12.4% or 12.5% potential alcohol and chaptalized lightly. Owing to the frost, five cuvées are missing from his portfolio in 2016.

As Boillot’s press is so gentle (he uses a vertical press, like those used in Champagne), the less-ripe grapes don’t even get crushed. The pressing takes a full three and a half hours, he told me. Because he doesn’t get any heavy lees, he does not carry out a débourbage and begins with a good 15 liters of lees in each of his 350-liter barrels. The malos finished by the end of March and Boillot racked his wines at the beginning of April. He showed me samples from new barrels, to demonstrate that the oak element does not dominate his wines even in the early going. Incidentally, acidity levels in his 2016s are sound, with many of them in the range of 4.3 or 4.4 grams per liter.

Boillot finds more definition and purity of terroir in his young ‘16s than in his ‘15s, which he believes “will give early pleasure but can also age." He went on: "The ‘15s show less dynamism but are not heavy wines. They're only slightly lower in acidity than the '16s but you can notice the difference." Boillot harvested very early in 2015, starting on August 24. With pulpy grapes and thick skins, the yields in many of his parcels were closer to 30 hectoliters per hectare than to 40, he told me.